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I'm still a bit confused as to where exactly Episode 8's narration contradicts Incompetent Battler

As soon as Battler realizes that Ange is gone it is remarked as very strange because a Game Master knows everything going on in their game. Apparently, the only way that it's possible that Ange could disappear from the room Battler left her in without him knowing is if there was another Game Master. And that's what led them to realize something strange was going on.

Although I think Renall proposes a false dichotomy when he says this can only mean Genius Battler or Incompetent Battler, since I think Erika's move to kill the fakers in EP6 was retroactive, thus at no point were the fakers dead without Battler knowing. In fact, Renall's version of Genius Battler requires an incompetent Erika who simply assumes that she can do things without the Game Master knowing.

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Originally Posted by Vnonymous

I also fail to see how Ange's reading for Featherine makes the narration unreliable.

Please, allow me to speak. Know that we are under no obligation to explain "how" first-person narration can possibly be unreliable in order to demonstrate its existence, because the phenomenon has already been explicitly documented in EP5 when it was shown that Battler could not have possibly seen Kinzo as was narrated.

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Originally Posted by Vnonymous

She's reading, not writing.

I'm not going to describe how a Reader mechanic works (capitalization of "Reader" from the translation, not from me), since I haven't entirely wrapped my head around it myself, but I'll provide some food for thought:

From EP8, during the setup of Bern's game:

Lambda: Will you be the Reader, Bern? Or shall I do that...?Bern: ......I don't need a Reader.Lambda: Huh?Bern: ......A Reader miko can use her own voice to embellish or distort the tale. ......Even if there was no cheap trickery in my game, by having a Reader, any amount of trickery could be added.Beatrice: Yes, that is true. ......That's another of the Game Master's privileges.Bern: I want to have a straightforward duel with you. ......So, I don't need a Reader. You can read this tale with your own eyes and ears.Lambda: Are you sure...?! That means you've lost almost all of your advantages...!Battler: ......Got it. You don't need a Reader. We'll read the tale ourselves.Beatrice: If there is no Reader, ......doesn't that mean there will be absolutely no falsehoods contained in the narrated text?

Although I think Renall proposes a false dichotomy when he says this can only mean Genius Battler or Incompetent Battler, since I think Erika's move to kill the fakers in EP6 was retroactive, thus at no point were the fakers dead without Battler knowing. In fact, Renall's version of Genius Battler requires an incompetent Erika who simply assumes that she can do things without the Game Master knowing.

There's no way of knowing the move is retroactive and I'd argue it probably shouldn't be seen as such if only because there's never been any indication that a player can take a retroactive move. Besides, Genius Battler doesn't necessitate that Erika incapacitate the other First Twilight victims even if Battler wants it to; he can simply escape the room and let Erika entrap him later, in Scenario X that he never got to show her. But I think it more likely that the move had been taken, he pretended not to be aware of it, and allowed her to think she'd gotten away with it.

There's no reason to believe Erika's attempt to make a retroactive move makes her specifically incompetent, by the way. Why would she assume that? She thinks it's a game, and if she can conceal her moves from the other player, why shouldn't that work? Battler reacts as if she has surprised him, so she believes her moves are invisible to him. He never does anything to disabuse her of that mistake.

I'm curious as to what sort of additional options you would suggest are present here, given that there really isn't much you can do with Battler's knowledge beyond a handful of options. Either he knows in advance what she's doing (or can guess) and is faking surprise, or he doesn't know and is surprised. Ep8 says he has to know. If you're going to throw in "he did know, but until Erika announced she had done it it hadn't happened," you're essentially saying the same thing as "he didn't know." Which is supposed to be impossible.

The only time any retroactive move was ever discussed was the room sealings, and that had to be explicitly allowed. Battler never said "I'll let you seal three rooms and also make any retroactive moves you want in the future." If Erika had to be given the power to seal rooms after the fact, she couldn't possibly have also gone and decided she'd killed people after the fact without Battler permitting her to do so.

It's still perhaps possible this is what happened, but for such a complex manipulation of a rule loophole it sure is odd that neither the rule nor the loophole were ever discussed at any length. Whereas the thing about GM knowledge being absolute was rather explicitly brought up. So you're free to believe it, but I don't see where that idea is in any way supported by anything.

The conversation Bernkastel and Lambda have shortly after Erika first examines the bodies, where Bern says something about having total confidence in Erika's 'corpse examinations' and that they're almost at the level of red truth, really makes it seem to me like she did it right when she examined the corpses. It's not a retroactive move.

Personally, I'm more inclined to think that Ryukishi never had any particular ruleset in mind and just made things up as he went along, rather than that Battler knew all along and neither Bern nor Erika had any idea that this was how the game worked. Seriously, he changes the rules all the time, like with the difference in how red truth is portrayed between EP4 and EP6. You're giving him way too much credit if you seriously think he actually had any kind of concrete ruleset for the meta-world.

Also, I never got a decent explanation as to why Will, who obviously KNEW the answer and the truth behind it all, was honestly flabbergasted and didn't know what was going on when Shannon pulled off the BSOD and refused to get Kanon... And how that was likened to a checkmate...?

Well when Shannon got to the really creepy point of almost inviting Kanon, Will finally relented and said:

"... I see. So, after all ... I get it. That's enough. ... you guys can take it in turns, to watch the reception desk."

The checkmate reference probably refers to Will as the experienced player, pulling back instead of basically forcing Shkanon into a disgraceful 'defeat'. I got the impression that he may not think much of Shkanon as a 'trick' (or at least found it very simple to grasp), but had alot of respect for it's sentiment, and the mystery built around it.

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Originally Posted by Vnonymous

I'm still a bit confused as to where exactly Episode 8's narration contradicts Incompetent Battler, and I also fail to see how Ange's reading for Featherine makes the narration unreliable. She's reading, not writing, and I got the impression from episode 6 that Featherine wanted Ange to read so that she would have someone to discuss the tale with(which is why episode 6 is full of scenes where Ange and Featherine question each other and discuss what is happening).

I had a problem with this, too. The thing about what a reader adds has been vague, and implies they can just entirely change the text, at first glance. The resolution seemed to be that a reader couldn't change the text, but rather adds a lot of sassy commentary while reading, that provides judgement statements or attempts to fill holes in the narration.

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Originally Posted by Drifloon

I don't think you can easily say 'escapism is a good thing' or 'escapism is a bad thing' with certainty. And I do respect Umineko for having the guts to give a controversial message about the benefits of escapism - I find that makes for a much more meaningful and thought-provoking story than Higurashi's more conventional 'power of friendship' message.

Agreed. The problem is that, especially towards the end, the validity of dealing with your problems without escapism really drops off, and that it's just ... okay to completely disregard reasonable conclusions if they make you at all uncomfortable, because "Screw that noise, I'm having tea parties on the beach." Also, the whole "All loves can exist within the catbox" is just full on unpleasant ideas, despite it's intention.

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Originally Posted by Renall

The problem is Ryukishi already had a great and well-written example of true love that accounts for the realities that can pop up and accepts that some things aren't perfect: The parents. For all the things they do wrong, their love for each other was surprisingly strong. Krauss/Natsuhi, Eva/Hideyoshi, even Kyrie/Rudolf, they were all quite strong both romantically and realistically.

Oh man, THIS SO MUCH. I was almost always, ALWAYS wanting more narration about the parents. And while Erika makes a point that it's the depth of the prison, not the time spent there, I do find the Shkanon relationships all just ... pale in comparison. Reading Krauss try to feed Natsuhi that candy was just worth all the George proposals in the world.

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Originally Posted by GuestSpeaker

And then there is Rosa and...oh wait, she's a cow.

lolol
But really, I think Rosa is the most pitiable adult aside from Natsuhi (who has the worst by so far. So, so far.) The man she genuinely loved, who she presumably (if we go by the text, anyway) she went against her father to be with, ran off with a bunch of her money, a debt she's apparently STILL paying on a whole decade later. She has an EXTREMELY difficult child to try and raise alone ... and was a notably young mother, at that ... emotionally isolated from, and by no means respected as an adult by, her siblings, has been spurned several times just because she's already a mother, business failing because ... well, because. We were never told if it was incompetence (like Krauss) or just tough circumstances, but still. Current boyfriend is still tenuously married. Daughter keeps mentioning "that woman I may have murdered 20 years ago".

All that baggage from her siblings pretty much punishing her for being a child, when she was small, and forcing her to retcon her behavior to avoid abuse. I mean, she mentions that Krauss once broke a toy of hers and smacked her hard enough to draw blood, and it's just like, godDAMN Krauss is at least twenty years older than her, man. Her kid isolates her from her same-age friends, she feels legitimately burdened, but she also KNOWS about her failings as a mother and hates herself for it, and unlike the other adults, she doesn't have a partner to help see her through any of that.

...heh, my temperament regarding adults as a kid was pretty close to hers ("I need to not bother them with my problems, because they have their own") so I have a lot of sympathy. I have a friend, too, a young mother with a kid that's a little behind the curve and something as benign as "Oh, how old is she again?" really does leave a mark. MAN, I find Rosa's situation so messed up I decided I would forgive her if she had ended up being the culprit.

Oh man, THIS SO MUCH. I was almost always, ALWAYS wanting more narration about the parents. And while Erika makes a point that it's the depth of the prison, not the time spent there, I do find the Shkanon relationships all just ... pale in comparison. Reading Krauss try to feed Natsuhi that candy was just worth all the George proposals in the world.

Erika doesn't know shit. Jessica also makes light of Kyrie's suffering in ep6, which made me kind of tilt my head. Really? Surely Ryukishi doesn't actually believe the suffering of the adults is somehow shallower than the conditions all the kids find themselves in.

Jessica and Yasu have crushes. That's all. If nothing comes of them, it will not be the end of the world unless they stupidly choose to make it so. Krauss and Natsuhi are dancing around financial ruin and trying to keep their family and marriage intact. By any metric, they are suffering in ways that stupid immature children cannot begin to understand. Yes, they are the cause of many of their own problems. So is Yasu. That shouldn't make any difference. Yasu has the unique ability to walk away from everything. She can reject the gold, reject the family, reject all her suitors, continue pretending to be an orphan, take her considerable severance, and go do whatever she wants. She might feel entrapped by her condition and her emotions, but there's a damn sight of difference between feeling entrapped and actually being circumstantially entrapped. And that makes light of the suffering of the adults anyway. Natsuhi feels so cornered she's delusional. But that's because she actually is cornered. How is that any less a thing?

Magic ending does not show all too much about escapism though. Ange/Yukari seemed to be able to handle her own life, as she didn't end up in some kind of psychatric clinic. She still clinged to the hope that someday someone will return to her, but still she "went on".

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Originally Posted by Renall

Yasu has the unique ability to walk away from everything. She can reject the gold, reject the family, reject all her suitors, continue pretending to be an orphan, take her considerable severance, and go do whatever she wants.

Some of us think she prepared that in the last 2 years before the incident... the identity of an author somewhere in the mountains that is.

I think Erika has a point, though. It's usually not for the best to try and compare who's got it "the worst", but it's as you say - one would take Natsuhi's situation, even if it were relatively brief far more seriously than one would take Jessica's situation, even if it went on for quite a long time.

It's PART of my issue with fully accepting Yasu's character, since as you say, her only REAL romantic relationship is with George, which is why Kanon will likely always lost that duel. And while I acknowledge her feeling for Battler as real, I have a hard time taking them as seriously as say, Kyrie's feelings about Rudolf.

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Originally Posted by GreyZone

Some of us think she prepared that in the last 2 years before the incident... the identity of an author somewhere in the mountains that is.

I dunno about the Ikuko part (she mentions having family and stuff...) but EP7 explicitly tells us that "something strange" would've gone down at the 86' conference, regardless. She indeed must have been planning SOMETHING.

It's only the second most twisted thing actually, after "lying to the world about a potential mass murder (or not telling everyone it was just an accident and allowing them to speculate it was a mass murder) is totally okay if you're trying to protect one person who can make her own damn decisions."

Eva's not lying, she's just...not saying anything. And after all, who obligates her to do so? Okay, obviously, this entire mess would require at least some explanation on her part, however, was there ever, EVER, any guarantee (always talking about a prime universe, from the general public's point of view) that a serial mass murder case actually took place on Rokenjima? No, there weren't. All they have for thinking that are some message bottles which could have been written by anyone.

I'm not overlooking the explosion and all the shattered remains found on the island, but normally, the first thing it brings to mind is an accident. We tend to think it's a given that it was a murder game because that's what we've been reading all the time. However, to an unsuspecting public, it shouldn't be that obvious.

So, I really can't blame Eva for not feeling like talking to people who go on making all sorts of crazy assumptions about her person and her family. IF there was a tangible piece of evidence suggesting that there indeed was a serial mass murder case, it would be ethical to push Eva to speak.

As for Ange, I believe loving someone means not giving a shit about the rest of the world as long as you can protect them. Not saying it's rational, just saying that's how it works.

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Originally Posted by Kealym

Agree with everything you say here.

I think Erika has a point, though. It's usually not for the best to try and compare who's got it "the worst", but it's as you say - one would take Natsuhi's situation, even if it were relatively brief far more seriously than one would take Jessica's situation, even if it went on for quite a long time.

It's PART of my issue with fully accepting Yasu's character, since as you say, her only REAL romantic relationship is with George, which is why Kanon will likely always lost that duel. And while I acknowledge her feeling for Battler as real, I have a hard time taking them as seriously as say, Kyrie's feelings about Rudolf.

Well....I just don't think its possible to weigh people's feelings, especially romantic ones into any rational scale. Though, obviously Kyrie had it much worse than Yasu, the second six entire years waiting for Battler, which isn't what I'd call mild.

Okay, no one obligated her to, it was only a crush, a stupid line by a twelve year old, and all the above, but clearly, Yasu isn't the sort of person you could call a 'realist'.

Also on the topic of contradictions, I have been rewatching Ep 1. Almost everyone agrees that Shkannon is the culprit in the forgeries (prime is more contentious), and that she intended to kill people. I am also aware of people who play the "Her murder mystery was hijacked" card. Putting aside the fact Nanjo is a sucky doctor who should have been quicker on the uptake, and any time Kinzo appeared as first twilight victim Krauss or Natsuhi should have known something was up, there is a problem.

Beatrice's letter states that she will give everything back if the epitaph is solved, however since forgery beatrice intends to kill people she can't. She isn't supposed to break promises...

Nanjo, Krauss, and Natsuhi are usually in on it, and when the latter two aren't, it's implied that Kinzo's corpse is being used to intimidate them. They can't exactly SAY anything's up, since they're doing their own illegal shit.

Also, the letter and Beato's actions are conflated, just like how Yasu's personalities are depicted as separate beings when they're really not. The letter is probably exactly as depicted in reality, where she can make good on her promise to revive the dead, but it's preserved in the Forgeries even though she's substituting for real murder.

Eva shot Battler because, as the two of them were the only ones left, she thought he was the murderer.

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I'm still a bit confused as to where exactly Episode 8's narration contradicts Incompetent Battler

Battler says that the Gamemaster knows everything about what happens on the Gameboard, and that Ange's disappearance was an impossible, unprecedented event, making him conclude there's a second Gamemaster. This directly contradicts EP6, where Erika was able to kill people without Battler knowing.

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The bigger problem for me is that Ryukishi's definition of love seems to be the most twisted thing in the entire series. If I can't lift a set of weights, it isn't "love" if I imagine myself juggling those same weights, or create a persona of myself that can. That's called "being an idiot/weak/unable to handle the truth".

Being without love(And Bernkastel was obviously lying when she said that - just watch any of her conversations with Lambdadelta, especially in Cross) in the Ryukishi sense is actually a positive trait. Erika's boyfriend WAS cheating on her, Yasu was stuck in a twisted and deformed body incapable of love(and deluding herself when trying to have a relationship with George), etc etc. "Love" makes you see things that aren't there - it is a bad thing to be full of that particular brand of love.

I hate to take Ryukishi's side on this, but....you don't seem to understand what Ryukishi's definition actually is.

It's not exactly about deluding yourself or playing pretend; it's about seeing another person in a better light because of what they mean to you. It's the difference between "Eva is a total bitch" and "Wait a minute, Eva's only being so nasty because she's in so much pain and I keep twisting the knife."

Entities like Yasu, however, are essentially case studies into how this can go wrong, because Ryukishi is cynical enough to see black and white in everything.

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I mean, if you can actually DO something about a negative situation, then that's obviously preferable to just pretending that you aren't in one. But in, say, Ange's case in St Lucia, where there was really nothing she could do about the sad state of her life, wasn't it a good thing that she had Maria and her other imaginary friends to give her a bit of happiness in her otherwise unenviable circumstances?

Bitch could've studied instead of playing pretend.

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The impression that Yasu left me with was that of a person that was overly concerned about her own tragedy to empathize with other people's situations.

Just like Shinji.

EVA ANGE LION. The truth is out there!

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Although I think Renall proposes a false dichotomy when he says this can only mean Genius Battler or Incompetent Battler, since I think Erika's move to kill the fakers in EP6 was retroactive, thus at no point were the fakers dead without Battler knowing.

Technically, Erika was never given permission to retroactively kill anyone. She was given permission to place seals, and AFTER ENTERING BATTLER'S ROOM, they were able to make "timeless" moves or whatever. But at no point was she given the authority to kill people backwards in time, even implicitly. She went into that room having already killed them and planned to use that against him.

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I mean, she mentions that Krauss once broke a toy of hers and smacked her hard enough to draw blood, and it's just like, godDAMN Krauss is at least twenty years older than her, man.

Eva's not lying, she's just...not saying anything. And after all, who obligates her to do so? Okay, obviously, this entire mess would require at least some explanation on her part, however, was there ever, EVER, any guarantee (always talking about a prime universe, from the general public's point of view) that a serial mass murder case actually took place on Rokenjima? No, there weren't. All they have for thinking that are some message bottles which could have been written by anyone.

I'm not really talking about Eva. At least Eva had the balls to hide the truth by casting herself as the "probable" culprit. There's a big difference between "I'll suffer so you don't have to" and "This information would cause suffering, so it's probably for the best that you don't have it." Which is bogus even if it would cause suffering, because it isn't one's responsibility to decide that.

I still think Eva made a mistake, but at least she paid consequences for her actions and willingly accepted that this would be so.

If you're going to throw in "he did know, but until Erika announced she had done it it hadn't happened," you're essentially saying the same thing as "he didn't know." Which is supposed to be impossible.

It's not "he did know, but until Erika announced she had done it it hadn't happened," it's "There was nothing to know until it was determined. Once determined, he knew."

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Originally Posted by Renall

The only time any retroactive move was ever discussed was the room sealings, and that had to be explicitly allowed. Battler never said "I'll let you seal three rooms and also make any retroactive moves you want in the future." If Erika had to be given the power to seal rooms after the fact, she couldn't possibly have also gone and decided she'd killed people after the fact without Battler permitting her to do so.

I understand the points you are making here and acknowledge them, but there's also the fact in EP6 it was discussed how the story's past can be changed by the Game Master to fit whatever circumstance he or she wants to create, so long as it is logically consistent. Basically, the idea that the Game Master "knows" what's "happened" in a game's yet-undetermined past is unintelligible, because to meta-entities it's not even the past. What happened in Ange's case in EP8 is that her disappearance was written without Battler's knowledge, whereas the thing in EP6 with Erika was written with Battler's implicit consent.

I think "permission" is an important aspect here, as you point out. The idea I have is just that if Erika outwitted Battler with her proposed actions, he simply had to accept it as a matter of good sportsmanship. He does have the option to just say "no Erika, that never happened," but if he does it's like Beatrice saying "witches exist." The game simply cannot continue.

There's also EP5. Bernkastel made some red statements for Erika that were not things Erika herself researched (IIRC the best example would be "Of all the people in the dining hall, not one of them left until 1:00AM"). I can't see how she could have done this without either getting implicit (or possibly explicit) permission from Lambda.

But Battler never gave Erika permission to kill anyone. And if he did give her permission to kill anyone at the time she announced it, he cannot have been doing anything but a Genius Battler maneuver, as he has no rational reason to accept a move that is explicitly designed to trap him and which he does not have to accept.

But Battler never gave Erika permission to kill anyone. And if he did give her permission to kill anyone at the time she announced it, he cannot have been doing anything but a Genius Battler maneuver, as he has no rational reason to accept a move that is explicitly designed to trap him and which he does not have to accept.

Erika just did it, unilaterally, and Battler didn't object. In that sense he permitted it. The game must go on, after all.

I do strongly support Genius Battler; all I'm saying is that the comment made in EP8 is unrelated.

Well, I don't know about you, but the 40 minutes of playing pretend or whatever sure bit her in the ass when her poor grades caused her to be harassed and treated like shit by her classmates for days on end.

If Ange's supposed to take the path that would lead to the best possible quality of life, it would be to prioritize her real life's well-being. There is a reason that "Self-Actualization" is usually the top need in the Hierarchy of Needs; Ange is pursuing self-congratulatory pandering from her imagination while she lets her academics, social life, personal life, and mental well-being go to shit.

And the worst part is she had so many opportunities to fix it. Even putting aside the whole "Eva wanted to love her and she ruined it" thing, she could have 1) Kept her grades up so her classmates had no incentive to single her out, 2) atleast attempted to make friends (apparently she didn't make that much of an effort), and 3) gotten some sort of hobby that's grounded in reality, and leave the pretending for her alone time when she's got nothing going on.

I mean shit, even if she just started writing stories about her characters like she does in the Magic Ending, it'd of been that much better received by her peers, because writing fiction as a form of emotional fulfillment IS HEALTHY AND NORMAL. Hell, she might have even made friends out of people who wanted to read it, and she'd be spreading "Maria Onee-chan's magic" at the same time.

It's a fucking win-win, and there's pretty much no justification for the actions Ange decided to take save that she was too busy sitting in her shit and bemoaning her tragedy.

You know, like Yasu.

I mean, shit, atleast Maria TRIED. She failed, but she tried. There's even a TIPS about how she went out of her way to get on her mother's good side and make her dreams a reality. You go, kiddo.

But super in on it, as he should KNOW THEY ARE DEAD FOR REAL. Though in the anime (I know, not to be trusted), he and Hideyoshi do seem pretty genuinely shocked at Twilight 1 Game 1, so maybe they just didn't know what to do know they were knee deep in real murder.

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Eva shot Battler because, as the two of them were the only ones left, she thought he was the murderer.

I considered that, however the things he heard her say do not match this. Something like "so, Eva, you're the culprit" and she says "Oh, you are only just figuring that out BANG"

Finally I agree re Maria and Ange. While Maria's struggle was sad because she tried so hard, when I read that scene with Ange all I could think was "I know your situation is terrible, and once people single you out it can be hard to break the cycle, but you sure aren't helping yourself here..."

But super in on it, as he should KNOW THEY ARE DEAD FOR REAL. Though in the anime (I know, not to be trusted), he and Hideyoshi do seem pretty genuinely shocked at Twilight 1 Game 1, so maybe they just didn't know what to do know they were knee deep in real murder.

Acting, along with Yasu conflating reality between murder and a game, like with the letter.

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I considered that, however the things he heard her say do not match this. Something like "so, Eva, you're the culprit" and she says "Oh, you are only just figuring that out BANG"

Battler's reliability is suspect in this scene, but even at face value I read it as a "Sure, whatever, murderer. Think what you like. BLAMMO."

I've been thinking about Rokkenjima Prime and the culprit theories for that lately, and it's a bit frustrating. The message bottle stories should have the required info in them.

The most likely options I've seen are:

(1) That it was all some sort of accident or huge mess that snowballed out of control.

That idea could be supported by the text, I think. At a tense family conference full of people desperate for money (if it was like that), and with perhaps Beatrice showing up with gold and shotguns, and then a couple of serious misunderstandings and accidents, okay. The ep 7 tea party and its Kyrie/Rudolf culprit theory didn't seem to make sense because of the risks involved, but maybe Prime could have something better. The Ushiromiya's are hot-blooded people who don't always get along. Especially if they were in the middle of a fake murder mystery, somebody not in on it could get paranoid and get shooting.

It can stand up as a reason why Eva refused to talk about it, because it would have shown so many people in a bad light. It's enough reason for Beatrice (if she wrote the stories after) to try to take the blame all on herself, especially if she's to blame for sparking the whole thing off.

(2) Yasuda...

But that is a really unsatisfying conclusion, because although Yasu has a motive for pulling off something like a fake murder mystery party for Battler, nothing about her suggests that she has reason to kill people for real. I like this option the least.

Furthermore, if Yasu did it and Eva knew that, there's no way Eva would cover for her.

More likely would be Yasu being involved but not intending to kill people. After either a big group misunderstanding killing everyone but Battler and Eva, or a specific culprit committing the murders, she might well flip the switch on the bomb to either kill the culprit or hide the evidence.

Alternatively, she could have been pulling a Kinzo and leaving the bomb timer switched on for the sake of "magic", but intending to put it back before it activated. If there was an incident and she was killed or unconscious, she would be unable to stop it. It doesn't even have to be a malicious incident: it could be as simple as "everyone had a great time at the family meeting, including Beatrice, but unfortunately when everyone was playing catch with a ball, she was hit on the head and knocked out..."

(3) Someone else, who Eva and Yasu both need to protect. In earlier discussions I've seen and agree with, that tends to indicate either Battler or George. Eva doesn't want her son painted a murderer, and if Battler did it she wants to protect Ange from that knowledge.

And this is where I get stuck the hardest, because what motive could Battler or George possibly have for killing everyone? There could be all sorts of things going on in Prime that we weren't aware of, okay, but the text ought to have something. Battler survived the incident, which makes him more suspicious, and George seems to have some extremely suspicious traits in the games themselves, but when it comes to a motive for killing all those people, it's really hard to think of one which fits either of them. Neither is portrayed as caring about the gold or being the head of the family. (And even if they did, the scale of the murders doesn't even make sense for people who did want the gold or headship.)

George might have a motive for something involving Battler or Shannon, but what about Maria? Jessica? Gohda? Kumasawa? His parents? Etcetera.

Perhaps the best theory for any given individual is one where there's a murder game, they aren't in on it, and they believe murders are really happening. And then they get paranoid while holding a shotgun, and real deaths result from that. It's not a great theory, but I can understand that happening.

But as for a deliberate murder of all those people, I have a lot of trouble thinking of anything sufficient for either Battler of George. Does anyone else have an idea for that one?